VIRUS

How do you handle illness?  I try to take every opportunity to learn something about myself, something I am sure I can apply later down the line, but I do not like to be sick.  We woke up a few days ago to a computer riddled with virus.  A computer that while we had discussed and planned to back up and make disks of sentimental material, we never did and now do not have the chance.  Everything we had on there, is gone.  If we'd been living in NYC, I would have just called the Geek Squad immediately and had them come over and do a diagnostic.  But we are in Barbados and I have not heard too many great recovery stories when it comes to computer viruses and breakdowns.  I panicked and was wounded, hurt, frustrated, and mostly angry.  At myself.


I have moped around the house for the past two days not just devastated at the loss of our photos and videos, but raging inside at myself for failing to realize that the computer was going to crash before I had the chance to get the photos saved and documents backed up.  Completely irrational, I understand, but I can be rather unforgiving of myself.  The computer has a virus.  With a hardly secured line in this country, out in the woods really, according to our provider anyway, we cannot get more secured than we are and yet, I was shocked to find us with some sort of crazy virus wreaking havoc.  I was angry and I think, I must admit, I did it all wrong.  I punished myself, could not chalk it up to fate or bad planning.  I thought of everything we'd lost and hated myself for losing it.  I said, why didn't I just do this or that, couldn't I have taken the time to back up, copy, save, whatever.  I didn't want to see anyone and saw the beautiful images of Lily and Virginie smiling at me, melting into the void.  I seem to have forgotten that the images and not the girls were gone.

The truth is, I will back everything up in the future, but for now, the pictures, the videos, the documents are gone and we are, technically, not the worse for it.  There is another camera with files and photos on it.  The girls do not have to have 500 photos of themselves on any given day.  And I am human.  I made a mistake.  I have to find a place where it is OK for me, and for everyone else really, to be so.  And herein lies the lesson. 

When I was nearly destroyed by post-partum depression, I was furious with myself for not being able to pull it together.  I hated myself more each day for failing to show my babies how I loved them when I hated myself and nearly every breath I took.  I couldn't believe how difficult it was for me to just reach for them and cuddle them without being exhausted or weepy or completely put out.  I didn't ask for help for myself, thought that if no one could see my pain, then it wasn't really so.  I said things like, you idiot.  What kind of mother are you?  You have the most beautiful children and you don't seem to realize it.  Get it together.  Women have been doing this forever.  Who are you that you need more than everyone else? 

When I fell to the floor with a kidney stone, I begged, please protect my children, and tried to keep a cool face for them and wondered, how the heck did I do this?  I looked for fault, for what I had done wrong to cause this.  It was even worse when my body was unable to endure the pain and I vomited for hours on end causing me to need admittance to the hospital, having been refused a release to my home on my own recognizance.  I was pissed.  At myself again.

Now, with a virtual illness, I have come back to my usual punching bag, myself.  I am trying to let it go.  Let it go.  Let it go.  I was sick.  The computer is sick.  Everyone is getting better and you go forward from here.  I have to forgive myself for being human, for being imperfect, for making mistakes, for fucking up some times, or I will always be sick, unable to heal, or grow, or connect to a deeper, more spiritual place.  While it is difficult to release myself from this inherent cruelty, withholding even the smallest kindness to myself, the thought of Lily and Virginie feeling the same makes me want to heal. 

I have done fewer absolutions than usual and have not denied myself small pleasures.  I have not reconstructed all the events of the past months when the computer started acting a little crazy and had to be rebooted.  We are just going forward from today.  And each day.  And the next, until we are just living and being.  All in good health.  With an external hard drive and back up disks.


(c)  Copyright 2011.  City Mom in the Jungle.

(Pictures will start up again on the next posts.  Thanks for your patience.  I am only human.)